I. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to communication, and more specifically to techniques for sending control information in a wireless communication system.
II. Background
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, etc. These wireless systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting multiple users by sharing the available system resources. Examples of such multiple-access systems include Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) systems, Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) systems, Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) systems, Orthogonal FDMA (OFDMA) systems, and Single-Carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA) systems.
In a wireless communication system, a Node B may send traffic data and/or control information on the downlink to a user equipment (UE). The control information sent on the downlink may convey a downlink assignment, an uplink assignment, and/or other information for the UE. The UE may also send traffic data and/or control information on the uplink to the Node B. The control information sent on the uplink may convey channel quality indicator (CQI) information, acknowledgement (ACK) information for the traffic data sent on the downlink, and/or other information. The control information sent on each link may be useful but represents overhead. It is desirable to efficiently and reliably send control information in order to achieve good performance.